As for cards to take out, I think you have much combo potential, so it is not necessary to mantain lots of creatures that have just combat or protection potential. There are some unecessary redundancies and a bad land for a deck with just 31 lands:

Sylvan Primordial (banned)

Polukranos, World Eater

Majestic Myriarch

Avenger of Zendikar

Mirri's Guile

Primalcrux

Temple of the False God

Elderscale Wurm

Bellowing Tanglewurm

Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger (it's much better on 1x1, and you should focus on building a board that allows you to kill everyone with a single combat phase, maybe two with enough protection)

That's it. The idea should be go infinite with Selvala, drawing/tutoring your creatures and playing them on a single turn, then giving them haste and swinging at everyone. No incremental damage, just a single, deadly blow!

1 week ago

I enjoy the mechanics of your deck. I have made a very similar one myself, and have tested out some of the cards you play, and found them wanting. However, that depends always depends on the playgroup IMO.

Viridian Longbow - While this card seems good on paper with rhonas, it has never given me any real value. As rhonas needs to be first equipped and then tapped to do the shooting, -ideally this means that you have a turn 3 creature shooter where you have spent all ressources up till that point to be able to shoot 1 creature at a time, with everything tapped and nothing to block.

Lifecrafter's Bestiary - I have only ever tried this card out in my Karametra deck, but in that extremely creature heavy deck, it was underwhelming, to say the least. What is your experience with that card?

Norwood Priestess - Found the Elvish Piper equivalent simply too slow for my taste, I have played around 5-7 games with that dude out, and it has never yielded me anything good. With the amount of ramp cards you play, i would say that this girl could be cut for something more usefull, but ofc, that depends on your own experience as well.

Cards, you might wanna consider:First two, you have already considered and found wanting Utopia Sprawl, Overgrowth. I have tested these cards, and they are overwhelmingly good. Theyre harder to remove than mana dorks, and they provide infinite mana easily with Earthcraft and Cloudstone Curio. Plus you know, they make the Arbor Elf extremely much better.

Temur Sabertooth This dude is underated IMO. While he provides another bounce effect, the protection of your key creatures is legit and should be a higher priority i think. With some of the mana doublers in play, he also goes infinite. And he has the added benefit of activating your Rhonas for a measly 4 mana.

Homeward Path - I have found, that while having an indestructable commander is all well and good, the worst thing that can happen to this deck is that someone else steals the fucker. In your deck you only have your big eldrazi girl, to get him back (i.e. to command zone then recast]. But it depends on the playgroup i think. In any case it is tutorable with any of your land tutors.

Surrak, the Hunt Caller Another haste enabler, which i have found myself tutoring for loads of times to enable combos. He activates Rhonas, and Rhonas in turn activates his haste ability. also. throw out 10 dmg turn 3 is always good for pressurering controldecks.

Yavimaya Hollow I love this land, as I will often see players trying to mess with the key mana producers. It is a solid card, and will give you a bit more resilience.

Elvish Archdruid I know that you have at some point considered this card. And let me tell you, consider it until you put it in. Do not think of anything else, just do it. Fulfill your dreams and do it. It is cheaper than the Channeler, and provides another easy way to win the game.

In all I liked your take on Rhonas, and it look very very much like my own. I have played it in 1on1 Commander and consistently take wins away from aggro and control. The only deck that has the number on Rhonas is Queen Marchesa control. That burns all lower creatures, and sacs Rhonas in a neverending cycle of dominion over our green dorks. Which makes this deck entirely too slow without the added benefit of small dudes.

1 week ago

Bovine073,FYI, I did a bunch of testing with Oath of Nissa and it's good but not great here, mostly because it doesn't immediately impact the board state. Jadelight Ranger does a similar thing, and though it's more expensive (mana-wise) and doesn't dig as deep, putting a body on the board makes a BIG difference. And it seems the color fixing isn't really needed in a two-color deck ... well, as long I remember Garruk, Primal Hunter has :-)

Rishkar's Expertise I thought about for a while, I put in Garruk Primal Hunter for a Soul's Magesty type of effect, but Rishkars does seem a lot better. Will add.

Shamanic Revelation is more for a token deck I feel. This deck doesn't go wide. The only time I can see it's use is with Kamahl.

Natural Order is pretty good. I feel like I need more green creatures to get use out of it. That's why I want to add Terastodon or some other big green dude which can be tutored with Natural Order or Green Sun's Zenith.

1 month ago

The dryad was certainly a welcome addition; as you might have inferred from my previous comments I've wanted to get rid of the Ant for a while. Here's some things I've been thinking of, hopefully they'll be new and noteworthy:

(Huatli, Radiant Champion) is kinda interesting since it's easy for the deck to get enough for the token-friendly draw power emblem in two turns, but good old Garruk, Primal Hunter can probably achieve similar results more reliably even if he's slightly more expensive.

Very questionable but ((The Immortal Sun)) provides a draw power alternative to Mirari's Wake. Obvious ramp-related worries here since I feel the deck doesn't cast enough spells per rotation to make the mana discount compare to the land enhancement. ((Regal Behemoth)) is an interesting middle ground with the bonus of also having a nice body, but misses out on the swarm-friendly anthem and more importantly paints a target on you, which leads to it having a parasitic relationship with all "Deterrence" cards, as well as some "Conflict Escalation" ones (especially anti-synergetic with Mystic Barrier since getting monarchy back could get really awkward). Finally, with 6 CMC and taking a rotation to actually start providing their draw power (maybe even more in the case of the Behemoth), both of them will probably come out too late too often. (Other Naya monarch cards are overall pretty lackluster IMO.)

A few non-Rivals cards:

I feel Warmonger Hellkite is too mana-demanding for what it gives, being in the second highest CMC category of the deck while also wanting you to spend 2 mana on its activated ability and having a drawback. I wonder if long-term Maybeboard resident Grenzo, Havoc Raiser can't do things more efficiently by providing a Basandra-like sniping ability with a defensive bonus outside of 1v1, but perhaps more intriguingly also providing an alternative source of pseudo-draw (although I realize it's pretty meta-dependent and requires you to gamble on holding back mana in case you get lucky) that also adds a slight control quality to the deck. (He also has some cute synergy with Duelist's Heritage.) Including Grenzo would probably also require switching in some more evasion, in which case I'd like to note my preference of Khenra Charioteer over the Primer-recommended Archetype of Aggression since I don't want to stop my opponents from trampling over each other (Monarchy-enabling Regal Behemoth will obviously want to stick with the Archetype though).

Really questionable but (Ulvenwald Mysteries) could complement Tireless Tracker, obvious problem is that the deck has few creatures that wants to die, and with the exception of Sad Robot they only want to die under the right circumstances. I guess it could EDH muppets like Reclamation Sage even more expendable though, esp. since Sun Titan is a thing. Also ((Tamiyo's Journal)) but it's even slower, esp. considering its cost and rather one-sided benefits.

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